jhb171achill

Not as such, no, though very occasionally (e.g. 12th July) excursions ran from the BCDR onto GNR lines. One must presume that a GNR loco took over in such a case, but there was never anything regular.

Yes, they did. Not all, though - some went directly from the filthy "silver" straight to black'n'tan. The green used on those which did wear it, was the post-1955 lighter green, with a pale green waistline but no flying snail.

“….THREE wagons they’ve sent? Sure John Pat O’Sullivan was telling me last night he’ll have ten or twelve beasts himself! We need to telephone for at least two more…..is the telephone fixed?”

The Christmas parcels are beginning to arrive now; three vans on the branch train today….. . “…… yes, it only came here last week. Only two months old. It’s one of the new ones from England. You’re better sitting in it - the lights still aren’t working in the other one…..”

That is a SERIOUSLY excellent weathering job.

I’ve been posting books to people in Ireland, U.K. and further afield. One got lost in post (to USA), and two were delivered in England with (British) charges whereas others went OK ; one was sent back to me from England.

It's on UTV Player, but it seems that not everyone can get that - I can't seem to.....

That’s one of the Studio Scale Models kits, Fiacra, professionally built - light years beyond my skill set! Very excellent job it was, as you say.

I understand that there was a brown envelope involved, and someone with connections had a word with an influential local publican......

Yes, yes, I know - SERIOUS overkill. A 1961 working timetable…. I’ll draw the line at beet circulars, though….. I’ll shut the door behind me.....!

The next stage with Dugort Harbour is to actually connect it to something, as it is only a shunting layout now. It was delivered and installed, but is the wrong height as the extension has to be somewhat higher to clear two small attic access doors. It will shortly be raised to the level of the already-installed "high level" boards which will form its extension. The concept of the original layout, as may be guessed from the pictures, is of a forlorn backwater on CIE somewhere in West Kerry or Cork, sometime between 1955 and 1965. This allows steam and diesel, elderly six-wheeled passenger stock and brand-new modern laminates and (post-1963) Cravens; and silver, green and black'n'tan liveries as well as the grey and yellow of the B121s, as befits a period with probably a greater variety of everything than at any time before or since. It was based on a place which was an extension to a secondary line to a somewhat larger place, like what Killala was to Ballina, Westport Quay to Westport, Cahirciveen to Valentia Harbour, or Skibbereen to Baltimore. My initial favoured fictitious location was somewhere in the west, but there were not even kits, let alone RTR models, of MGWR-type stock, especially six-wheelers - but there WERE GSWR ones; so south-west it had to be. Add to that 00 Work's excellent J15s - you'd never have got them in west Mayo. So, this imaginary Dugort Harbour will be the terminus of a line of some 4 or 5 miles from Castletown West, a town probably the same sort of size as Newcastle West, Bandon, or Listowel. The trackplan at Castletown West is more or less the same as that at Newport, Co Mayo, except that room shape dictates that it's partly on a curve. Beyond Castletown West, the line disappears round a corner and beyond a scenic break to end in a fiddle yard. The imaginary line branches west from somewhere about Blarney (main line), or a point maybe halfway between Cork and Mallow, and meanders west, tracing a route roughly between the Muskerry narrow gauge and the Macroom branch to the south, and the South Kerry line to the north, ending up at the coast somewhere between Kenmare and Bantry. This allows for the sort of train service pattern as seen on the North Kerry or Albert Quay - Bantry, or Mallow - Waterford. Two passenger trains a day each way between Castletown West and Cork, with connecting branch services. I want the whole thing to look as realistic as possible, rather than have seven 15-coach expresses charging round the room (though I do see the attraction in that too, as a separate issue). This, being Ireland, means that less is more - but it also means that considerable operational variety can be had. Firstly, places like this in real life tended to have a one or two coach train with goods vans and gawd knows what tagged onto the end. The odd cattle truck, a second tin van if there was a lot of mail or parcels, and the like. However, market day or a cattle fair day, plus GAA, pilgrimage, summer excursions and beet resulted in huge traffic and congestion on certain days only. Much scope for operational interest there - but with the "normal" trains being two to three bogie vehicles in length, but good-sized goods sidings, the design favours the reality of what sort of operations would have taken place. Secondly, with but two stations - one a terminus from a long secondary line, the other a sleepy branch extension of that - there needs to be something else going on to maintain interest. Thus, the section from Castletown West functions as a comparatively busy country town terminus, with all the shunting and goods mentioned above, and a locally based main line set as well as a Cork-based one; each making one return trip a day, with an extra in summer. These bumble back and forth to the fiddle yard. Also, a pilot engine is based here, as there is a fictitious flour mill a little east of Castletown; this allows for short goods trip workings from here straight into the fiddle yard too. The branch operates with its own passenger set and loco, so you've a main line train connecting with a branch one; two operations on an end-to-end layout with but two stations and a fiddle yard. That's the best I could do with available space. Track marked out tonight as shown, with markings for wiring to follow, then with the assistance of several friends, we will raise Dugort Harbour to the same level as the rest. And then, hopefully, the activity which results will distract me from scribbling books for the winter months!

Superb and very interesting answer, thank you!

Likewise with me - very helpful.

Very nice little set-up indeed, with plenty of visual variety for a space like that. One small suggestion might be that the old loco shed is actually (originally) an old goods shed, as there's a platform beside it - and with the inspection pit on the adjacent line you could pretend that that's where a loco shed USED to be....

An interesting little detail here, and something I haven’t seen ever yet in model form, is the pre-mid-50s slightly darker wagon grey plus lower-placed “eau-de-nil” snail, which only the very first “H” vans would have had, and not for long! First wagon behind loco…..

Exact same with GSR & CIE steam engines. While some WERE black rather than grey, many people thought that many more were too, due to dirt - and soot! All were grey* until the mid-50s, and most were even after that. A steam engine uncared for gets a whole lot dirtier than a diesel, and quicker, though Crossley-engined "A"'s were very much up there with steam, if not sometimes even worse. (* bar the green ones. Ye know what I mean! )

True, though my point about the 121s was that even the body got dirty - a strange colour for a railway loco and even more so considering that when the 121s were new and in that livery, they were still working alongside steam engines! Worse, the "silver" A, C and B101 classes had SILVER bogies - until they'd been in use for an hour or so.......... And today's 071s, same - Inchicore's 1915 decision to paint everything on wheels grey lives on!

And yet for almost all of railway history the wagons had the same colour as the body - which was often grey of various shades including light grey.... I remember thinking the 2600 railcars looked odd when they appeared in the "Fanta can" livery with grey chassis. Naturally, like a light grey 121 or a grey steam engine, brake dust and general gunk soon became the "livery" of the wheel area plus the body - but it did exactly the same if the chassis was initially brown or black!

Well done, Ernie, good to see you back, best wishes!

Ah! I mustn’t have known them….!

Were they sniped?

I’ll check out a few pics and report back if I see anything relevant!

I think the lights are the same - the left-hand image looks compressed…..

Couldn't agree more, Hexagon - some Wiki stuff is is 100% on the money and well written, but other stuff there is drivel or a misleading half-story!